Language turns over a new leaf

You’re familiar with “agribusiness,” our constantly evolving language’s term for the commercial aspect of farming and ranching. But now there’s cannabusiness, a word often heard by anyone who recently was in the vicinity of the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.

The Cannabis Business Summit convened there June 24-25, staged by the National Cannabis Industry Association – an event and a group that would have been nearly unimaginable not that many years ago. That fact was brought home by the inaugural event’s slogan: “Where commerce meets a revolution.”

The revolution, of course, is the growing acceptance and spotty legalization of cannabis for first medicinal and then recreational uses.

Along with the often staid, dry, pencil-pushing presentations, however, emerged some new words that will creep into more common usage – and eventually Webster’s dictionaries and the Associated Press Stylebook – as the budding industry establishes itself. Besides cannabusiness, which was part of many of the session titles, the following new and unfamiliar words were overheard:

Budtender – The person behind the counter at a dispensary, whose responsibility goes beyond helping customers find the product that fits their needs to educating them about how to use it safely.

Backcross – Not a designed soccer play at the World Cup, it’s actually a hybrid cannabis plant that has been bred with one of its parents to achieve a certain result.

Medibles – Edible goods such as brownies, gummies or candies that have been infused with cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Feminized – You’re thinking this is a form of marketing designed to lure more women to cannabis, right? Nope. It’s a plant that comes from seeds that were selectively bred to produce only female plants, because only female plants produce the flowers where most cannabinoids are found.

Cannabinoids – The chemical compounds found in cannabis that produce various effects in humans.

Surprisingly, there’s one word that isn’t heard much at a cannabis business summit:

Marijuana – It’s seen as a pejorative, invoking images of Cheech and Chong and “Don’t Bogart That Joint” instead of a serious commodity to be handled in a businesslike manner.

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